I just arrived from a trip to Turkey with a small group. It was my first oversea trip after 2 years. I joined the group with a friend.
We took a long flight, during night time. What do you do when you are on a long flight?
How do you enjoy a long flight?
My friend took a sleeping pill to help her sleeping during the flight. After settling down in the cabin, she started enjoying movies. I decided not to touch the screen in front of me. So I slept very easily and quickly. A quite good one. Only after enough sleep, I watched one movie. A drama movie. It was about a family, about a young daughter in the family, about how she digested the way the parents and also siblings relate to one another, the relationships, the conflicts and also her self.
When we just landed in Istanbul I asked my friend if she enjoyed the flight or not. She said that she couldn’t sleep, even after taking a sleeping pill. I asked her : “How many movies did you watch on the plane?” She said : “Three movies”.
No wonder that she could not sleep. The movies are there for an entertainment. It is to entertain the mind. The mind will keep processing what you see on the screen and what you listen through the little earphone. The mind keeps busy. So it doesn’t rest. It doesn’t sleep.
It is in your hand to put the mind awake or asleep. Not in the pill.
What do you do when you have to wait? Nobody likes waiting. But when you are on an air trip, you will have to go in a queu after a queu. And it means you have to wait a lot. You probably have to queu to scan your barcode to enter the airport building, the you have to queu to check your luggage, then you have to queu at the check-in counter, you have to queu to go inside after passing the check-in counter, plus you have to queu to declare your electronic health application, then you have to queu to board on the plane. Queu after queu after queu….
If you have have to transit at the airport before continuing your next flight or probably your flight get delayed, and you have to wait for quite a while what do you usually do while waiting? Long before covid when I was in a transit at an airport for several hours I was sitting in a lounge, a very nice lounge. It was an international airport. Very busy airport. Many flights from different continents transited there. I saw a young woman carrying a yoga mat in the lounge. She was practising a little bit of yoga exercise in the lounge. The lounge was quite big and cozy and not crowded. I thought it was a brilliant idea to have yoga exercise during transit. It is especially very good if you are on a long flight. The body need some exercice.
I never do that actually, but I remember I always carried with me a squeshy. I had a strawberry-shaped one. Not quite big but it suited to my palm. I noticed by squeezing that squishy could give me some comfortable feelings. it brought calmness in me. I could play with it during my transit or waiting period. I didn’t need a big space to play with it. It is also a bit of exercise for me. I remember when we were traveling in a big group and I played the squishy with a friend while waiting our boarding time. It was always fun! She said that her daughter loves squishy too. The squishy has broken long time ago and I got a new one but it was not as good as the first one. It was smaller than the first one. I wish I can get a new one.
It gives you a calm feeling!.
Modern airports usually provide cozy lounges or interesting spots. I found this interesting mural painting at the airport in Jakarta very recently.
Stop and have some fun here
another fun spot at airport
Look at this. It was painted on the wall along the corridor on the way to the baggage claim area. It looks fun, doesn’t it? Looking at the mural, I said to my friend to stop and I asked her to take these pictures for me. I always said to my self ‘You are free to do anything that makes yourself happy.’ It is including taking a picture with the mural painting. After taking some pictures I asked my friend to do the same. I could take some pictures for her. But she refused to do it. I jokingly said ‘By taking the picture with the mural painting, you won’t get older quite soon’. It may give a lot of fun to her too. Hearing this she just laughed at me. And I said ‘probably you won’t get older quite soon, but you will get crazy quite soon.’ I think she agreed with the humor and we laughed together.
Have you had any vacation during this pandemic? If you had one, how was your vacation? Did you take an air trip? Is there any difference?
I was having my vacation last week, during the weekend. It was more like a short break for me. It was my first vacation for the last two years. I experienced myself to be in a ‘physical lockdown’ due to the pandemic. No trip at all. So I was very excited.
I was in this trip with a friend. The beauty of having a travel buddy is that we can share. My friend did the flight booking and I did the hotel booking and car rental. We shared a room. We shared itinerary. We decided where to go together, but I let her make the detail itinerary. Luckily both of us are quite flexible people. I think we have become a nice travel buddy to each other.
An unhurried trip
I called it an unhurried trip. Although it was just a very short, but I wanted to experience it as a relaxing vacation. I expected a lot from this. I told my friend things I wanted to do and enjoy during our vacation. Just to make her understand her travel buddy. I tried to be open about everthing to her as much as possible. I told her that I would do my morning meditation, journaling and yoga exercise. So I brought a yoga mat with me. We are flexible people. We didn’t have to attach to each other all the time. One morning I went to a meditation class and she went to a new coffee shop that she was really curious about. She enjoyed her breakfast there. The day before we went to that coffee shop but it was fully booked. It looked very nice, in the middle of the forest in Ubud.
My morning tracking
Nature never fails to make you refreshed.
This is a break for the soul, so refreshing. We enjoyed the nature so much. I enjoyed the morning tracking. I really loved it. We enjoyed mountain, lake, forest and also paddy field. I kept reminding myself that it was the journey for the soul, not just a physical journey. It is the soul that creates the experience. It is the soul that is filled with nice feelings – relaxed, unhurried, unoccupied. It is a real break when the mind stop rushing.
This pandemic has completely reset my mind. I think in a personal level, I have adjusted myself quite well. I do not have the courage to make any travel plan. It is already December. Ussually I have made a travel plan for a year end vacation before December. My colleagues also usually have made their plans for their family vacation every December. But not this year. Nobody has shared any trip plan yet.
When a colleague was talking about air ticket promotion which sounded really a good deal, I felt like I just woke up from a very long sleep. “What is it?” I said in my mind.
It has been a year when I had my last travel. I never imagined before that it would be this long, we have to stay in our place and not travel. A vacation for me is to spend sometimes in nature, away from the city. In December last year, I went to Banyuwangi. I thought I would like to travel from one end to the other end of Java. I took a train from Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Banyuwangi. A very long trip, but it was a really wonderful trip.
It is the place where you can see blue sky everyday.It is called ‘Africa van Java’People call it “Lord of the Ring” forestMe and the Loro Jonggrangs
I have found several ways to enjoy my December with no traveling nor ‘vacation’.
What about you? Do you have any plan to end this year?
In my office most of my colleagues had made their plan for taking christmas and new year leaves since the first week of December. My boss got a leave sheet circulated for everyone in the division. I planned to take earlier leave this year, on the third week! And I think that it was the best decision. I had a solo trip to several cities. It was so enjoyable. I decided to take intercity trains for this trip. It had become my long time dream to enjoy a trip by train. Actually it was not a total vacation, because I had several ‘workshops’ during that time, short journaling workshops! It might be more a sharing than a workshop. I was really happy doing it. I am happy knowing that more and more people are interested in journaling.
I came back from my vacation only a few days before Christmas when most people started their vacation. I think the timing was just perfect for me. I definitely enjoyed my vacation without having any hassle. Though my flight back was two hours delayed, but it was still okay with me. The airport was a bit crowded due do some delayed flights. When your heart is happy, you just don’t want to get disturbed by those little situations.
During the christmas and new year holiday what I want is just having some quiet moment at home. What about you?
I shared with a friend on how I am so passionate on journaling. It has become my hobby for the last four years. I am writing on my 21st notebooks now. I notice that I become very particular in the notebooks and pens I am using for my writing hobby. I said to him that I spent more than USD 300 for the notebooks and pens. I am only using one brand and one particular design only for the notebooks. And the design has been discontinued. I do not like the new design. Knowing this, I hunted to several different bookstores in one day, hoping that they still had the stock of the old design. I got about 25 notebooks. I thought it would be enough for my journaling hobby for another 5 years or so.
Spending USD 300 only for notebooks and pen! My friend said that how much I paid for the stuff is the value of my happiness. ”For five years of happiness, you pay only USD 300. It is very cheap!” he said. I never thought of doing this calculation. There are so many people out there who buy their happiness with much higher price. Some might buy a brand new car, a new camera, a new smart watch or a fancy trip. All the marketing people say that you need to buy all of those stuff, because they will make you happy. Really?
He said to me “I think you don’t need a fancy trip to be happy.” In fact, I was smiling in my heart hearing this from him.
What do people collect from a trip? Experience or memories basically. Nowadays wherever people are going since they always carry smartphones with them, so they always take pictures. People collect pictures a lot in their smart phones while traveling and on their day to day life also. Everyone loves taking pictures and collecting pictures.
I was in a trip very recently. We were on a boat to Mt. Rigi in Switzerland. I was sitting next to a couple from Hongkong. We were sitting inside the boat on the first floor. As soon as everyone entered the boat, I noticed that everyone started taking pictures using each one’s smart phone, including the lady sitting next to me and including me. I reminded myself to enjoy the trip by enjoying the scenery and the atmosphere not busily taking pictures and missing the moments. So I did’t take many pictures.
When the lady was settling down next to me, she started scrolling the screen of her camera. She showed me pictures of their trip in several places in France. Beautiful pictures! Keeping photos is a good way to store the beautiful memories. And nowadays it is very easy. It doesn’t need ‘a space’ to keep. It only needs a space in your computer or gadget. I asked her “For how long will you keep the pictures with you?” She said “May be a life time”.
What does a vacation mean for you? How often do you need for a vacation?
For some vacation is to visit a good place, enjoy being there in that place for a few days. Enjoy eating good food. For some vacation is a quality time with the family or friends. Quality time usually means time for relax and for fun. For some a vacation means time for a break from the routine. For most of the people the focus is more on the external. What they can experience from the external.
Vacation for me is time for the self. Just be with the self. Vacation is the pause button. The rest of the time you might have been dealing with people, family, colleagues, bosses, clients, customers, friends etc. Vacation is time to deal with the self. To talk to the self to know what the self really wants. To know the self better.
I enjoy the company of friends and having fun with them also. But it is definitely in a separate occasion.
Song of the Heart 